Facebook unveiled Facebook Home, which is a suite of apps that delivers an entire Facebook experience to your smartphone. As my CNET Reviews colleague Jessica Dolcourt points out in her post, Facebook Home isn't a new phone. It's not a new operating system. And it's not a new redesign of Google Android. It's just a set of apps that act as a "skin" that operates on top of the existing Android OS on your smartphone. "Chat Heads" is a new app designed by Facebook to make messaging more accessible on a mobile device. It allows people to engage in multiple conversations at once, and conversations via Facebook chat or SMS without opening a separate app. Facebook Home will be available for download from the Google Play store starting April 12. It is $99.99 with a two-year carrier contract and is exclusively available on AT&T. It will go on sale April 12. No, the Facebook Home suite of apps is only available for Android smartphones right now. But it sounds like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg would like to get an iOS version on the market, too. He told reporters at the event launching Home that he would like to see the Facebook experience integrated into every device. But he acknowledged that getting it on an iPhone would require a partnership with Apple. Right now, Facebook Home is only available for smartphones. But the company said it is working on an Android tablet version. Yes, you can use other apps even with Facebook Home installed. But instead of all your apps being on your home screen, you will need to go to the "app launcher." Facebook has created an app shortcut, but you need to manually put all your favorite apps in these shortcuts to have them pop up with one click. When the Home apps first launch there will be no advertising in the integrated Facebook smartphone experience. But you are smart to ask to ask this question. Facebook is not a software or hardware company. It's a media company and it makes its money from advertising. So that has to fit into the picture in some way. CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that advertising will be part of the experience down the road. But the company spent little time discussing this. CNET Reviews editor Jessica Dolcourt wrote in her initial review that it's possible to tweak certain settings on the app to customize it to your own tastes. But she notes that to get everything working together, you will have to download the Facebook app and Facebook Chat. Facebook Home is a suite of apps. It's not software that is deeply integrated with the operating system of the device, so you will be able to disable it if you find you don't like it. This will really depend on what kind of Facebook user you are. If Facebook is one of the top apps you use on your phone, and you are constantly checking for status updates, liking your friends' pictures, and commenting on posts, then you will probably really like the new Home apps.

Notifications, which would appear to be the most egregious offender in the intrusive arena, aren't any more obnoxious than the Facebook notifications you get on your current smartphone, because they're based on your settings. They are nice to look at, and to those who say this is too much Facebook, I say, adjust your settings.

Cover Feed gets you close, but not too close, to your friends. It's the perfect feature for people who feel like they're missing out on friends' updates...But in eyeing Cover Feed, I was most struck by how the full-screen photo experience makes nearly every pic look better than it actually is. Really, it does. And because every Cover Feed update, be it text or otherwise, is a photo, your home screen is always a bright and inviting place to live.

In stressing Facebook Home's shift of focus to people, perhaps the company is missing the point about owning a smartphone. While users spend an estimated 20 percent of their smartphone time on Facebook, they're spending the other 80 percent doing a lot of other different things, whether it's checking e-mail with Gmail, reading an e-book with Kindle, or checking in on FourSquare.